LazyWP wrote:This place is just now starting to calve. I always thought I wanted to calve May and June, but these Herefords are fight Mastitis so bad from over milk production, I am not so sure now.

Having been raised on a dairy, I have never heard that Mastitis can be caused by excess milk production. We had several cows that produced over 100 lbs. of milk per day and they were the ones least likely to come down with it.

As far as I know, Mastitis can only be caused by the introduction of a pathogen on the teats...............

LazyWP wrote:This place is just now starting to calve. I always thought I wanted to calve May and June, but these Herefords are fight Mastitis so bad from over milk production, I am not so sure now.

Never heard of a Hereford with to much milk that's a new one for me ha ha. Just kidding we went to later calveing and that's the one thing it does sorts the poor udders.

I was going to say the same thing. What are they eating to give so much milk? If they are turned out on pasture, not a lot you can do. If you are feeding alfalfa hay,I'd stop doing that in a heartbeat. Baby calves don't need much milk. Sometimes we kill with kindness.

If a cow does get mastitis, usually the calf can take care of it.

There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn't true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.

They are on irritated Brome and Triticale. Way over fed for calving, in my opinion. Be a great way to get them to cycle though. They don't feed salt or mineral, and we lost 3 really NICE heifers the second day on the Triticale. Never been around a place with so much potential wasted!

That has to be frustrating to say the least.What do they have against salt and mineral? Have they been ranching long?Those dead heifers would have paid for a lot of mineral, which you know.

And consuming too much protein can go against high breeding percentages. I have an article written by Dr. Price from BEEF Magazine, from a long time ago. He talks about some cows in Australia not getting bred. He went down there and they were on high-protein cereal pastures (over 20% protein). It changed the PH in the uterus and the egg could not attach. The cows would come in heat, but they wouldn't settle. They changed pastures for the next year and the problem was solved. Because of that, I cringe when I see ranchers put out molasses tubs this time of year...adding protein....costly and usually not needed.

There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn't true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.

This is the third generation of ranchers. Run over 1000 head of Hereford momma cows. Feed everything out. Don't get the cull cows shipped until they are so fat they can't get up the loading chute. Quite the place for sure!